The Gathering Storm: Will Christianity Be Held Accountable?
Enough is enough
This comment was posted recently on one of my articles:“In what year did you become not just an atheist but a crusader against Christianity?
In what year did you acknowledge yourself as a homosexual?”
I found these questions about chronology a bit puzzling, but then it struck me that there was another agenda: to identify me as a zealot, and to make sure people know that I am gay. After all, what could be worse than an outspoken gay atheist?
On Trump, Covid-19, Cognitive Bias, and Evangelicals
Understanding what we’re truly up against — the reign of terror that Trump will almost surely wage the moment he believes he can completely prevail — makes the upcoming presidential election a true Armageddon. Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does.The Atlantic Monthly has put out a few great articles on Trump, Evangelicals, and the Coronavirus. The most important one is a theme of mine about cognitive bias with regard to faith and religion:
My Great Grandfather's Major League Baseball Legacy Has Been Settled!
Labels: Irish Ancestry, Tom Loftus
Sex and the Celibate Priest
Turning religion into an ordeal
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (5:24)
Suppose They Found PROOF Jesus Existed
What difference would it make?
Hitler’s American Christian Friends
Can Christianity clean up its act?
Bradley Dalton reviews the book "God or Godless"
Labels: Dalton Reviews Of My Books
Bradley Dalton Reviews "Christianity is Not Great"
"A Must Read for ALL Truth Seekers!" by Bradley Dalton, who says, "This is one of my favorite books. It’s the go to book regarding the pragmatism of Christianity."
Regarding my chapter 8 on Christianity and the Savagery of Slavery, the reviewer writes:
"This is my favorite chapter in the book. In it Loftus discusses the
topic of slavery in the Bible. I recommend referring Christians to this
chapter if they try to say that the slavery in the Bible wasn’t that
bad. Loftus goes through the Bible passages and debunks the common
apologetics used to defend biblical slavery. He also shows how the Bible
was interpreted to justify slavery in the United States."
Labels: Dalton Reviews Of My Books
Biology Defeats Theology
…and it’s not even close
I was born just about fifteen years after Edwin Hubble determined that Andromeda is a galaxy outside the Milky Way; this disproved the argument of some astronomers that our galaxy was the extent of the universe. What a gift this was for our understanding of who and where we are! For the first time humans had insight into the inconceivable vastness of the Cosmos.Baseball Research Journal: Tom Loftus is the American League’s Forgotten Founding Father.
Labels: Tom Loftus
Calls For Ending the Philosophy of Religion Are Doing Nothing More Than Advocating For the Secularization Of Our Secular Universities
Insofar as "theology" includes courses that presuppose the existence of the divine, take seriously the existence of God or Jesus, or prepare people for the ministry or to promulgate religious beliefs, then those courses not only have no place in a University, but are exercises in delusion. Now I think the higher-class divinity schools, like Chicago's and Harvard's, have very few of those courses, but there are some. They should not be part of a secular university. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that Hitchens's razor is correct: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." That applies to any form of theology that takes gods or superstitions as real. Universities should not be in the business of taking seriously those myths that have no evidence behind them. They can, of course, teach myths, but at no point should they imply that there is evidence for their truth. LINK
My position seems to be the same as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay when it comes to ending the Philosophy of Religion (PoR) discipline in the secular universities. The classes covered could be taught under the umbrella of the Philosophy discipline itself (with no need for a subdivision of PoR) or in the Comparative Religion departments, and especially science classes. Just think of it this way. We don't have PoR classes on Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Mithraism, Norse theology, Haitian Voodoo, Paganism etc., in any secular university that I know about. We don't see this for good reasons. Now think real hard about why, okay? The main purpose of the PoR discipline is to examine the evidence and the arguments for religion. Evidence. Arguments. Its main purpose is not merely to get students to understand religion. Rather, it seeks to assess the claims of religion by looking at the evidence (if there is any) and the arguments (if there are any good ones based on the evidence). By contrast, the main purpose of classes in Comparative Religions departments is to understand religion.
Labels: Ending Philosophy of Religion
An Angel with a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
Pushing Christian theology into fantasy land
“Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”
I'm Skyping into the Apologetics class of Dr. Gary Habermas
A Final Sermon in a Time of Pandemic
What does disease tell us about God?
Labels: Daniel C. Maguire
I Unequivocally Without Qualification Condemn Systematic Institutional Racism!
Discuss. I know good people disagree. WATCH THESE TWO EXCELLENT VIDEOS FIRST!!
Is There Evidence That There Are No Gods?
I was recently involved in an online discussion in which a reason I hadn't previously seen was offered for preferring negative to positive atheism. (By negative atheism, I mean the mere lack of belief in any gods, and by positive atheism, the belief that there are no gods. And the fact that one usually needs to explain this is one reason I prefer the traditional terminology.)
There are better and worse reasons for being only a negative atheist. But the one that was argued by my opponent in the discussion was pretty weak — and if it is accepted by others who call themselves atheists, they really should be aware of that.
Briefly, my opponent's argument was that one should only believe when there is evidence; that there is no evidence that there are no gods; and therefore that to positively disbelieve in such beings is completely unjustified.
On the Hunt for Jesus in the Old Testament
The manufactured prophecy miracle
Benjamin Blade Speed Watkins On Faith and Reason
Labels: Benjamin Blake Speed Watkins
Liar! Christian Organizations Paid Norma McCorvey (a.k.a. “Roe”) To Speak Out Against Abortion
The Corrosive Effect of Christian Excuses
Not doing God any favors
On 10 May 1941, Rudolph Hess flew alone in a Messerschmitt-110 fighter plane from Germany to Scotland. He was one of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, and was “under the delusion that he could arrange a peace settlement,” according to William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), who offered this assessment: “For a German who had got so far in the jungle warfare within the Third Reich, Rudolf Hess, as all who knew him could testify, was singularly naïve.” Hitler was outraged: “…he gave orders to have Hess shot at once if he returned…the Fuehrer hoped the bizarre episode would be forgotten as soon as possible…” The British didn’t take Hess seriously for a moment.Introducing the 2020 International eConference on Atheism
Anselm "Faith Seeking Confirmation"
I Just Asked Dr. Craig An Important Question
Hi Dr. Craig. I hope you are well.
With the relatively recent work in establishing the strong tendency of human beings toward cognitive biases such as confirmation bias, (which is the mother of all cognitive biases), along with many others like selection bias, the ostrich effect, omission bias, verbatim effect, and so on, what advice do you offer honest inquirers to overcome these biases when searching for the true religious sect? I haven't seen you address this question before.
What perspective do you suggest for honest inquirers when searching for which religious sect is true, if there is one? Surely you don't endorse one of faith seeking confirmation (i.e. Anselm!), as that is the epitome of a known cognitive bias, which leads inquirers to embrace whatever they were raised to believe.
Giving Too Much Credit to the Holy Spirit
Yes, I know, blasphemy!
We can appreciate the urge of Christians to distance themselves from the Old Testament. The pathological anger of Yahweh doesn’t sit well with folks who rank high for empathy; his brutal laws are especially chilling, e.g. rebellious sons and sabbath breakers are to be stoned to death—and The Book of Numbers, one of five in the sacred Torah, describes the revolting ordeal that women accused of adultery must undergo, supervised by priests under the watchful eye of the Lord (5:11-31).Yes, we’re ready to Just Say No to the Old Testament—except for some of its famous stories, I suppose. Christians are proud that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, sets the tone for much better religion—or so they think. Although if they actually read the Sermon on the Mount carefully, they’d find quite a few lines to cross out; e.g., those who have pension plans—even ministers—need to find a way to finesse, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…”
Here's a good review of my anthology on miracles by Bradley Dalton
Labels: Dalton Reviews Of My Books
Christianity: Ten Knockout Punches, Number 10
Paul, apostle and saboteur of sane religion
Whose Abject Failure? William L. Vanderburgh Tweets On Hume and Bayesianism
Labels: Bayes Theorem, David Hume